Reflection Paper 2 Internal and External Factors that Shaped Me by Leader Pedro Leonard G. Castañeda
External - What are family, environment, school and work experience that shaped you today?
In school: For as far back as memory allows, my family, particularly my grandmother and my mother, have encouraged me to excel, and undoubtedly, this should include being a leader wherever I was. Indeed, my first three years in grade school saw me being elected, virtually unanimously, as class president, but we all know that this was hardly an exercise of true leadership. The first reality check was in my fourth grade, where, as a transferee in a new school, I hardly enjoyed the almost automatic popularity I once had in a school where my grandmother taught. And that was the sum total of my leadership career all the way to college.
For quite some time, I didn't quite see myself as a leader. In class activities, I was never voted by my peers to lead the group. I was hardly Mr. Congeniality back then, and was a bit antisocial, somewhat boorish, makulit, and you wouldn't believe it: shy. I had a hard time adjusting with what seemed to be meaningless meetings that only succeeded in going nowhere (to me), and I always seemed to evade volunteering to do this or that task. Maybe I was perceived to be a liability; and perhaps, I was, mainly because I was so unsure of what I was good at. I even had the distinction of being unanimously kicked out in one of our class groups: the only one I ever knew of in my 7 1/2 years in UP.
I did end up being thrust into a position of authority, not by election (in which I would never win, or so I thought), but by sheer length of stay. My fraternity practiced strict seniority, so by the inevitable passage of time, I would become a "senior brod" to a growing number of juniors. As such, I had the fortune of being discovered by our Grand Archon (the title of our head) to be a relatively good writer, and so to keep me busy and focused on things with more significance than wine, women and song, I was made the editor-in-chief of our fraternity newsletter, a position I held twice. Aside from this, other fraternity projects, both benign and violent, enabled me to command my juniors. What stuck to me then was that while their respect and obedience to me was expected and automatic, I too was totally responsible for them. Seniority then took on a new meaning: it was not a position to abuse at my discretion, but a burden to make sure that their safety and well-being were taken care of, particularly in times of emergencies such as the occasional fraternity rumbles.
